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Early childhood education is more than just learning basic speech, math, and science. Truly holistic learning includes physical, social, and emotional development. Most of these can be achieved best through play-based learning.

This has been practiced by some of the best schools in dubai with British curriculum. But it should not only be developed in the school; play-based learning should also be nurtured at home. In this article, I am going to share to you some of the simplest toys that can be very useful and effective for play-based learning.

Building Blocks

Stack them up! Form lines! Build pyramids! Playing with building blocks help develop fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and color recognition. You can let your kid play with them freestyle. You can ask them to sort and stack them according to color. You can challenge them to recreate stacks you make. And with a little creativity and wild imagination, you can even play simple role-playing games with them. And as a bonus, they can also help foster discipline when you ask your kid to tidy up after each play.

Modeling Clay

Playing with modeling clay is always a fun and stimulating experience. It is especially fun for kids because of its bright colors, its distinct smell, and its feel on their hands. It helps develop fine motor skills, color and shape recognition, and an early appreciation and practice of artistic expression. You can model basic shapes, animals, food. Your imagination is the only limit! And whatever you make, you can also use for role-playing games.

Paint

Painting is also always fun. It helps develop fine motor skills, color recognition, and an early appreciation and practice of artistic expression. To make it more stimulating, especially for younger kids, just use your hands, get messy, and fingerpaint! You can teach your kids about colors (Mix them up to make new colors!), shapes, and basic drawing and painting. But the very best of all, is just letting them paint whatever and run wild with their imaginations. Let them paint the whole family, their favorite fruits, their favorite cartoon characters! As a bonus, you get to keep beautiful artwork to post on the refrigerator door, or even hang on frames.

Ball

As simple as a ball is, it is one of the most important simple toys every kid should have. Playing with it helps develop motor skills, hand-eye coordination, balance, and even rhythm. A simple game of catch would already take care of these. And there are just so many different games you can play with the use of a ball (Just google them!). At an early age, you can already hone your kid’s ball skills for sports they might want to play in the future.

Just remember, for younger kids, the simpler the toy, the better. They need toys that would encourage them to be curious and creative, toys that would let them create, imagine, and just play. So next time, when buying toys for your young one, instead of focusing on what the toys can do, think about what your kid can do with them. Have fun!

For inquiries about play-based learning and the British curriculum, just visit this website: https://arcadia.sch.ae/